e some thousands of years back; but it cannot be entirely
different, or else we should not be conscious of a difference. Mr.
Wells must surely realize the first and simplest of the paradoxes that
sit by the springs of truth. He must surely see that the fact of two
things being different implies that they are similar. The hare and the
tortoise may differ in the quality of swiftness, but they must agree in
the quality of motion. The swiftest hare cannot be swifter than an
isosceles triangle or the idea of pinkness. When we say the hare moves
faster, we say that the tortoise moves. And when we say of a thing that
it moves, we say, without need of other words, that there are things
that do not move. And even in the act of saying that things change, we
say that there is something unchangeable.

But certainly the best example of Mr. Wells's fallacy can be found in
the example which he himself chooses. It is quite true that we see a
dim light which, compared with a darker thing, is light, but which,
compared with a stronger light, is darkness. But the quality of light
remains the same thing, or else we should not call it a stronger light
or recognize it as such. If the character of light were not fixed in
the mind, we should be quite as likely to call a denser shadow a
stronger light, or vice versa If the character of light became even for
an instant unfixed, if it became even by a hair's-breadth doubtful, if,
for example, there crept into our idea of light some vague idea of
blueness, then in that flash we have become doubtful whether the new
light has more light or less. In brief, the progress may be as varying
as a cloud, but the direction must be as rigid as a French road. North
and South are relative in the sense that I am North of Bournemouth and
South of Spitzbergen. But if there be any doubt of the position of the
North Pole, there is in equal degree a doubt of whether I am South of
Spitzbergen at all. The absolute idea of light may be practically
unattainable. We may not be able to procure pure light. We may not be
able to get to the North Pole. But because the North Pole is
unattainable, it does not follow that it is indefinable. And it is only
because the North Pole is not indefinable that we can make a
satisfactory map of Brighton and Worthing.

In other words, Plato turned his face to truth but his back on Mr. H.
G. Wells, when he turned to his museum of specified ideals. It is
precisely here that Plato s